All posts tagged: printable

Advent Saints Coloring Pages

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Are you looking for a simple way to incorporate some feast day celebrations into your Advent this year?  One of our parish members, Michelle, has created these lovely coloring pages for you to print as you will and enjoy with your family.  We are currently in the midst of a very busy season in the life of our family, so this will be about the extent of our feast day observances this year.  I look forward to joining my children in some quiet coloring time!  Thank you again, Michelle! StNicholasColoring StLucyColoring  

A Holy Year Calendar

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Isn’t it interesting that the Christian year begins the first Sunday in Advent?  What a lovely way to orient ourselves to a new year, by beginning with quietness and darkness, preparing to welcome the great light of Christ. I painted this church year calendar for my own children, as a way for them to visualize how the changing sundays and colors of the church year correspond to the seasons.  Now that we live on a farm, I am even more appreciative of the endless sundays in Trinity, that ordinary time, that is full of the necessary and mundane business of life.  As we approach winter, with less “ordinary” work, our time is free for celebration and feasting. Please enjoy this printable with your own family, and Happy New Church Year! A Church Year at Home  

Preparing for Advent: Jesus Tree Ornaments

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If you’re looking for a great way to celebrate Advent, here is one of our favorite first posts, with Bley’s beautiful Jesus Tree Ornaments. 2018 Edit: If you’d just like Scripture readings rather than using the full Jesus Tree devotional, here you go. For the past few years, we have been trying to keep a quiet Advent, and one way we do this is by using a Jesus Tree devotional.  A lovely friend recommended the Jesus Tree Devotional by Rachel Chaney, which is based on The Jesus Storybook Bible.  It has proven to be an easy and meaningful way for us to keep our focus on the spirit of Advent, and build up to the celebration of Christmas.  The devotional itself is straightforward and easy to use: there is a symbol with corresponding Bible text for days 1-25 of December, and then a script/story that you read aloud to your children.  A traditional hymn follows to sing, and there is an ornament that you can cut out and color with your children.  The thing I love about this …

Kitchen Blessing Printable

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Christ the King member and artist Michelle Abernathy created a lovely kitchen blessing for her home and is now sharing it as a free printable for personal use with the Homely Hours. Her to-do list contains the goal of making “prayerful beauty in small spaces.” Perhaps her Kitchen Blessing art may also add prayerful beauty to the small spaces in your home. The blessing is taken from Edward Hays’ Prayers for the Domestic Church: A Handbook for Worship in the Home. You can follow Michelle and see more of her art on facebook and instagram.  “Blessed be this shrine of the kitchen. “Blessed be the herbs and spices, and the pots and pans used to prepare our meals.May the ill-seasonings of anger and bitterness never poison the meals prepared here.” May all our meals be sacraments* of the presence of God.” Click image above to print the Kitchen Blessing Printable from Michelle Abernathy Art. *We take the idea of “sacrament” here to refer to a vision of reality that sees all creation as an epiphany of the …

Rogation Prayer Bunting

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Amanda had the idea for a prayer bunting to hang in your home, or around your garden, as a way to celebrate the Rogation days in your family.  The first page has a few prayers already included on the flags, and the remaining two pages have room to write your own prayers, and for children of non-writing age to draw their prayers.  Just another visible reminder of our responsibility to pray always for our neighbors, communities, and society at large. Cut the flags and fold them and secure with tape over some kind of string.  Kabob skewers work well to hold the flags in the ground.  We would love to see some of your Rogation buntings as well!  Tag us on Instagram @thehomelyhours. RogationFlags

Prayer Beads for Kids

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One of my goals this Lent is to spend more time in prayer.  My husband gifted me a beautiful set of Anglican prayer beads for Christmas, and the practice of using the beads and ages old prayers, in a rhythmic, defined manner, has made prayer more accessible to me.  And so I am much more inclined to spend time doing it! As I’ve been keeping them around on my desk areas for use, my charming and curious children have asked me what they are for, and so I decided to make them some of their own.  I was somewhat surprised that they were interested, but we ran with it, and came up with these simple circlets for their use. These can be made out of anything, and would be a fun Lenten family activity, or perhaps a surprise in their Easter basket?  Use what you have on hand; plastic pony beads in two colors on a piece of yarn would work just fine. The important thing is to place your beads in this form: For …

A Valentine for You, Mom and Dad

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One thing I love about the prayer book is that it gives direction that is simple, precise, and Christ-focused to my thoughts and inward groanings.  This is the prayer that I say the most, under my breath, in desperation, at the end of a long day as I fall asleep: Almighty God, heavenly Father, who hast blessed us with the joy and care of children; Give us light and strength so to train them, that they may love whatsoever things are true and pure and lovely and of good report, following the example of their Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen. Click the image below to download a free printable of the  Parent’s Prayer  pdf from Esther Bley Designs.

Candlemas Printables

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We are excited today to bring you some Candlemas printables to aid your celebration of this Festival of Light.  Folk artist Heather Sleightholm of Audrey Eclectic kindly agreed to create a special piece of art just for us!  Her lovely drawing of the presentation of Christ in the temple, the ultimate Light coming into the world, is available to you as a coloring page, or a sticker to decorate your family’s vigil candle for the year. At our parish, Christ the King, we will be creating vigil candles for each family during Sunday School on January 31, and then our priest will do the Blessing of the Candles during our service.  My family is excited to have this special candle in our home this year to remind us that we can bring all our cares to Christ. There are two different artwork designs, a black and white design by Heather that can be colored and a full color piece by me.  They are formatted two to a page to fit onto a standard vigil candle, …